Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.
Interpretation
The quote highlights how various disciplines express and embody wisdom through different forms of art and action.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote illustrates the multifaceted nature of wisdom as it is represented across different fields and professions. He suggests that wisdom transcends mere knowledge; it is an integral part of creation, whether through artistic expression, leadership, exploration, or innovation. Thus, it emphasizes that wisdom can be seen in a wide array of human endeavors, each contributing uniquely to our understanding and appreciation of life.
In practice
In a speech about creativity, one might quote Emerson to emphasize the importance of wisdom in artistic endeavors.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
Who would you be without the thought that happiness depends on someone else?
But the things that we feel most deeply we ought to learn to be silent about, at least until we have talked them over thoroughly with God.
The body shuts down when it has too much to bear; goes its own way quietly inside, waiting for a better time, leaving you numb and half alive.
People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others.
When someone is counting out gold for you, don't look at your hands, or the gold. Look at the giver.
If we judge ourselves only by our aspirations and everyone else only their conduct we shall soon reach a very false conclusion.
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